Quarter After One
by r2roswell
Summary: Takes place after Beckett's shooting. She spends her time at the cabin as she recovers, thinking about Castle's three big words when an unexpected moment causes her to consider things in a way she hadn't allowed herself before. Based off a prompt at CastleFanFicPrompts.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Time.

That's all she wanted. All she asked of him and so far he had respected that.

But time had respect for no one. It had for all time existed but man had tried to tame it, tried to fit it into a tiny circle to make it work better with their lives but time did not care.

Not even for Detective Kate Beckett.


	2. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

_- This is based off a prompt I found at .com._

_- They're short chapters but they are designed that way._

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><p><strong>Chapter 1.<strong>

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><p>One week was all it had been since Beckett's near fatal shooting. One week since a bullet had lodged its way into her the center of her chest and since her surgeons had to make a six inch long incision on the left side of her stomach to repair the damage.<p>

The week had felt long and it had felt short. Long in the sense that Beckett was out on medical leave and was to go nowhere near the investigation of her own shooting. And short because her wounds were still fresh. It took three to six months for a bullet wound to heal and from one week to one month for a surgical incision to heal provided it was taken care of properly.

Even now her wounds were bandaged in several layers of white gauze, blood and puss still seeping from them from time to time.

Beckett wasn't recovering in the comforts of her own apartment. Instead she was out in the isolated woods of her family cabin, her father taking time off from work and working from the cabin to take care of her as she healed.

Nowhere was she near one hundred percent. Her mind told her she was but her body told her differently from the pain that radiated in both locations.

She had called it an early night, having gone to bed at nine p.m. She hadn't gone to bed that early since she was nineteen during the time of her mother's murder when all she wanted was to shut the world out.

The night seemed to stretch on. Beckett found herself standing at the podium, presiding over Montgomery's funeral, speaking words that were permanently engrained in her mind.

_Roy Montgomery taught me what it meant to be a cop. He taught me that we are bound by our choices but we are more than our mistakes._

_Captain Montgomery once said to me that for us there is no victory, there are only battles and in the end the best we can hope for is to find a place to make your stand and if you're very lucky you find someone to stand with you._

_Our captain would want us to carry on the fight and even if there is- _

But then the scene changed. Instead of feeling the hot led piece her chest, instead of being pushed backwards to the ground like she should have been, it was Castle who was falling forward toward her, the bullet having gone into his back. Beckett could feel the warmth of his blood through her fingers as she held onto him, guiding him toward the ground under his weight.

"No, no, no, no," Beckett called out. "Castle, Castle! Stay with me, please."

She could hear the wails of Martha and Alexis but she couldn't focus on them. All that mattered was the man before her.

Castle smiled up at her and Beckett smiled back through her tears, giving her hope that he would be okay.

"I love you, Kate," he whispered weakly.

She could feel him slipping away. "Castle, just hang on! Don't go, okay, please stay." Beckett took a deep breath as Castle tried to gasp for his. "I love you too," she whispered.

Castle smiled and then Beckett felt him go limp in her arms.

No. He couldn't be gone.

"It should have been me," she whispered.

Time couldn't be over for them. It had just started.

But it was gone. This was no fairytale. True love's kiss couldn't bring him back.

Time was up.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

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><p>Beckett awoke with a start, the jolt causing a new wave of pain, a reminder that it was her who had been shot and that what she had seen had been nothing but a nightmare, a very vivid nightmare that felt as if it could have been a memory.<p>

The pain in her chest and abdomen were throbbing now. She reached up from the bottom of her night shirt with her left hand and reached down from the collar with her right and could feel the dampness of the bandages. She knew they got wet at night but sometimes in sleep she wouldn't realize it until the morning when she got up.

Beckett could deal with the pain and the wetness. What she couldn't deal with was the nightmare. Not just Castle's death but the words they'd said to each other.

The very words that had become the reason why she'd told him, when he came to visit her at the hospital, that she'd needed some time, though he hadn't known what her reason was exactly. She wanted more than a week of it but her subconscious had made its way into her conscious state, almost throbbing like her physical injuries.

Beckett looked over to the table near her bed where her cell phone lay within arm's reach.

She looked at the clock which read a quarter after one.

Taking a deep breath, Beckett reached for her cell. She had his number on speed dial so all she had to do was press the button.

She hesitated for a moment and then pressed it.

After several rings, Beckett was about to hang up when she heard, "Go for Castle," in his sleepily state.

Beckett took another breath. "It's me," she said softly.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3.**

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><p>Castle, fully awake form the sound of her voice, sat up in his bed.<p>

"I'm sorry to call so late," said Beckett, "I just needed to hear your voice."

"Everything okay?"

"It is now."

"Well I'm glad you called." There was silence. "Beckett?"

"I'm here."

"Where are you?"

Beckett shook her head, "It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

Beckett bit her lip. She was entering uncharted territory but she needed to continue hearing his voice.

"I'm at my dad's cabin."

"I'll find it," said Castle.

"Castle, don't."

"Why not?"

Beckett remained silent for another moment, unsure of how to handle the situation or even how to go about it. "You know why," she said softly as she began to feel water in her eyes.

Beckett's words dawned on Castle as he took in the significance and heard the tremble in her voice as she'd said them. She had lied to him for a week. When he'd asked what she'd remembered from that day she had told him that she didn't remember much of anything.

"You remember," Castle said after letting it sink in. Again there was silence on Beckett's end. "Don't argue with me, I'm coming."

"You don't have to. You must hate me right now. To be honest I wouldn't blame you."

"No, I could never hate you. I'm coming," he repeated.

"I'll be here."

"I'll see you soon."

Beckett hung up the phone. What had she just done? She and Castle were walking a fine line, one that was about to be crossed. She could call him back but knew it was pointless. He had made up his mind and in a way she had made up hers as well. By telling him that she was at the Cabin she had essentially told Castle that she would be waiting for him.

Was it a bad idea, she wasn't sure but what she was sure of was that hearing his voice over the phone just wasn't enough. She needed to see him, to truly make sure he was okay and that her phone conversation hadn't been another dream within a dream.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4.**

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><p>Exactly as she thought, by three a.m. there was a knock on the door. Dressed in only her night shirt and some loose black pants, Beckett slowly turned a lamp on in the sitting room and then went to the front door.<p>

"Katie," said Jim as he came downstairs, "What's going on?"

"It's okay dad, go back to bed. It's just Castle."

"What's he doing here this late?"

"I called him."

"Oh."

Jim remained in the room. He clearly wasn't going anywhere. Beckett could only resign to his presence as she opened the front door.

"You shouldn't have come," she said to him.

"I know," Castle replied.

"Then why did you, Rick?"

"You know why."

She did and that's what scared her. At the same time despite her fears, it helped seeing Castle standing there, talking to her, alive, and not falling toward her the way he had after getting shot in her dream.

"These are for you by the way," Castle said as he presented Beckett with a bouquet of red and yellow roses. "You'd be surprised at how many flower shops are actually open at all hours of the day or night in this case."

This brought a slight blush and a smile to Beckett's face.

"There that's all you needed, a little color."

"They're beautiful, thank you. So are you gonna stand there all night or are you gonna come inside?"

Once Castle was inside he had closed the door behind him so Beckett wouldn't have to.

"Good to see you again, Rick," Jim said shaking the man's hand.

"You too sir, and under much better circumstances."

"So this visit, it couldn't have waited till earlier in the day?"

Beckett and Castle looked at each other and Beckett turned back to her father.

"Dad, it's okay."

Jim looked from Rick to his daughter who still held the bouquet of flowers in her hands.

"I guess it is. Whatever you two plan on doing, you still need your rest, Katie."

"I'll make sure she gets it sir," said Castle.

Jim and Beckett looked at Castle with amusement. "And by it I mean her rest, not what you think I meant which I didn't. I just meant that-,"

Jim smiled, "I understood what you meant Rick. It's fine. I trust you'll look after her in a platonic way. Goodnight."

"Night dad," said Beckett.

"Night sir," said Castle.

Once Jim had left the room and made his way back upstairs Castle turned to Beckett. "You should relax."

"Castle, I'm fine."

"You're leaking," Castle said pointing to Beckett's shirt.

She had felt it but hadn't thought much of it but with Castle here, the two soiled spots on her shirt made her slightly embarrassed.

"Damn it. I'll be right back."

"You know I could help. I'm very good at that sort of thing."

"You just want to see me with my shirt off don't you?" Castle shrugged. "Thanks but I think I've got it."

"Okay I'll just make some tea then. You should be resting so I'll come to your room."

Beckett gave him the same look she had just moments ago.

"To bring you the tea of course," said Castle. "Where is your head tonight Detective Beckett?"

"Back at the shooting," she replied solemnly, thinking not only about her leaking wounds and the idea of Castle seeing her all bandaged up but of the dream she had of watching Castle die. "First door down the hall to the right," Beckett said with half a smile.

"Got it."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5.**

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><p>After a few minutes, Castle knocked on Beckett's door.<p>

"You can come in, Castle," she answered.

Making his way inside the room, Beckett was sitting up in her bed wearing a fresh night shirt. It looked as if she had also changed her bandages since nothing was seeping through though Castle could see bits of tape and white gauze from the center where the low shirt collar failed to cover up. Castle wondered if Beckett had put that specific shirt on purpose or if it was just a comfortable shirt she wore to bed.

Castle found a square love seat and brought it close to the left side of her bed.

"It's decaf," he said handing Beckett one of the mugs of hot green tea.

"And you added a straw," said Beckett.

"Yeah well I wasn't sure how much movement you really should be doing."

"Thank you."

She took several sips and then reached over to her table. Castle placed his mug down and helped her place her mug down as well.

Not wanting the silence to go on for too long, Beckett asked, "So how's the book coming?"

"It's coming. I want to get the ending just right but Gina wants a rough copy by the end of the week. I'm thinking of giving her something basic so it can give me time to work out the kinks. I don't want something generic. It has to be right."

"Rick Castle not wanting to settle, why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Not always. If I had settled I would have taken those Bond books I was offered."

"True. Do you regret not taking those on?"

"Writing a fictional spy versus doing ride a-longs with you? Not a chance."

This made Beckett smile. Three years of being partners and he was close to finishing off his third book inspired by her.

"Kate, not that I wasn't happy about it but why did you call tonight?"

"It was nothing."

"A quarter after one call isn't nothing. Come on tell me, what's this about?"

Beckett took a deep breath.

"I had a nightmare earlier. It was about the shooting but it wasn't me who got shot, it was you," Beckett admitted to him. "That's why I called. I needed to hear your voice, to make sure you were okay."

Castle leaned forward and took Beckett's hand. "You know more than anything I would trade places with you if I could."

Beckett smiled and squeezed his hand, "I know. I think that's why I dreamt it. It's why I needed to get some distance."

Castle pulled away. He didn't quite understand where she was going with this. "Is Josh helping you with that?"

The proverbial elephant in the room thought Beckett. Just when things seemed somewhat easy they got complicated again.

"We broke up," Beckett admitted to him, "About an hour after you left me in the hospital."

"Oh," said Castle, "What happened?"

"For starters he was the one who cut me open. For the first time I didn't see him as my boyfriend, I saw him as my surgeon. And lastly, I really liked him but that wasn't enough, not when… so much had all ready happened," Beckett said not wanting to be able to take her words there just yet.

"Kate," Castle said taking her hand again now that he was allowed since she'd been single for a week. "We've been doing this dance now for three years and don't get me wrong I love the dance but is that really enough anymore?"

"Castle, after my mom died I built up this wall inside me. No relationship I've ever had has ever made it a year. I'm not sure if I can have the kind of relationship that I truly want until I find justice for my mom and find the person responsible for shooting me."

"Maybe not or maybe it would work. It would be different this time."

"How do you know that?"

"For one, it's me."

"True and I've never dated a guy like you before."

"See, so I've got that going. Second, I'm all ready more involved than your previous boyfriends, both professionally and personally."

Beckett couldn't deny either, especially the personal part. Her past relationships had known about her mother's murder but not much else. They didn't understand the obsession that drove her which kept her up most nights. They didn't understand what each new lead meant. They never saw the bulletin boards she had hidden away. Josh hadn't even seen the shutters she'd converted into a murder wall.

Castle had been by her side through it all, he knew the depth for which it drove her, to the point where he had been there on the day she got shot and stayed by her side until the ambulance had arrived.

Even now at close to four a.m. he had come, he had answered her quarter after one a.m. call. And no longer could she deny what she'd been trying to for the past three years.

Royce had been right. She had been fighting the realness of her and Castle and if Royce could see it, the others maybe could as well.

Maybe it was different. Maybe it wouldn't be like her other relationships that had crashed and burned.

"I love you, Kate," said Castle, "but you know that don't you? It's probably one of the reasons why you came out here. You needed time to sort through everything. It's why you told me you didn't remember much of anything when we last spoke."

"I needed time," said Beckett.

"And I respect that. I still do. There's no rush, Kate, I promise. Whatever you feel or don't feel, I can handle it, just as long as we're honest with each other."

This was it, the moment Beckett had put on hold for so long.

She had gotten away from the city, come to the cabin to not only heal from her physical injuries but to also contemplate on those life altering words that Castle had whispered as she had lain fighting for her life. And from what her nightmare this night, the topic continued to weigh heavily on her mind.

She thought she needed more time. It would have seemed nice, another month, maybe three but seeing him now, talking to him, hearing him make these not so startling confessions, she didn't need any more time. In his letter, Royce had said "the last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder, 'if only'" and he was right. Now what she needed most of all was all ready here. She had all ready put their dance on hold a couple times and Castle had done the same but now there was nothing in the way that could stop them, no reason to, and it made even less sense to try and find one.

"I love you too, Rick."

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><p><strong>~END~<strong>

_(Should I continue with it or leave it as is? _

_You decide! :^) )_


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